apartment maitenance

[rm]

We have water dripping from our ceiling around the radiator/heating pipe in the living room. I'd say about 2 drops a second from the main location, another location that drips a bit, and the ocassional rivulet coming down the pipe as well. Filled up 3/4 of a spaghetti sauce jar in about 3 hours. From the looks of things (we came home from the weekend and noticed dirty water stripes on the pipe) this has been going on to some degree all weekend.

I've called the management company, but the odds of getting a response tonight are low.

Patty is going upstairs to try to talk to the neighbors, who may not speak English to see if they have a dripping radiator that's then coming down into our place. (ETA: they aren't home, we're going to put a note under their door).

How concerned should I be, in terms of floor/ceiling stability? Is this just one of those things that I shouldn't worry about? We've had our radiator in that room drip lots of water before, but it was clearly just our unit, not stuff coming through the ceiling from the apartment above.

What else can we do until we hopefully hear from these people tomorrow?

Is there any reason calling 311 (local NYC complaint/information line for those not from here) would help?

And no, I have no way of contacting our super.

Comments

[starkyld.livejournal.com]

Gas is shut off to our whole building. We don't know why.

[redstapler.livejournal.com]

Josh has the same problem in his bathroom and a corner of his bedroom.

He said similar happened last winter, and a small chunk of plaster peeled away from the ceiling just this past week.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Is it constant?

So I'm guessing this isn't urgent, and I probably didn't even need to call the mgmt company (which I try to avoid doing), but since they are generally unresponsive, that's probably moot.

Hopefully the upstairs neighbors will answer our note.

[redstapler.livejournal.com]

It's not constant, it's only when the heat is on. (The heat in his building is practically "industrial strength.")

I believe yesterday when the landlady and the handyman came to assess the damage, they went to the upstairs apartment to talk to them about their heat.

[angstzeit.livejournal.com]

Steam or hot water?

[rm.livejournal.com]

The radiator? It's steam-based.

[angstzeit.livejournal.com]

Yes. Good. If it were hot water it would be likely to be a big problem.

[rm.livejournal.com]

So how much of a problem is this? As in, do I need to continue to feel flipped out, or can I cook dinner, be a normal human and just be agressive on the phne about it tomorrow?

Sometiems it slows down a lot (and I feel better) then it speeds up -- I can find three dripping locations -- the fast one, one that's every 5 seconds or so, and one that's every 10. I suspect that this third location isn't new, and I just haven't been focusing on it all so well.

[angstzeit.livejournal.com]

With steam there should only be water when the boiler is running (the steam condenses and runs back down to the boiler and there's pressure then). So the dripping should cycle with the heating. There shouldn't be a flood or anything like that. I'd say keep an eye on it but don't panic.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Yup, this seems to be what is happening.

We're down to drip spot 1 going every 5 seconds, dro pspot 2 every 7 or 8 and drip spot 3 every 15 - 30 as we seem to be on a down cycle now. Because this building is shit, I expect most of the night to be a down cycle, for which I have never been so grateful.

[feyandstrange.livejournal.com]

If you have an electric fan for summer, it will come in handy to point it at the wet plaster when the drips stop finally or the repairs are made, btw. Drying that stuff ASAP will help you not get mold. I don't know NY landlord stuff, but if a patch of mold or mildew grows there, report it ASAP.

OH, and if you have a digital camera? Take pictures. Just in case. Electrons are cheap and if you have to argue with the Rent Board or whatever you have there, being able to prove that there was a leak in X spot and that the mold or any other damage isn't the fault of your negligence will come in really handy. (And don't ask me about having to save a bowl of sewage-and-wet-plaster in the fridge for the housing inspector.)

[wcg.livejournal.com]

Oh boy, there are so many variables that it's hard to say whether it's a problem or not. At the very worst, your ceiling is not going to collapse with a water leak of the type you describe, at least not any time soon. So you're not in any imminent danger. But you should make sure that whoever fixes the leak doesn't stop there. The floor upstairs and your ceiling need to be checked for water damage. Your wall may also have water damage that could lead to mold problems. So where there's no short term serious hazard, there may be a long term one.

[better-late24.livejournal.com]

Ditto to the mold comment. And the likeliness of the person fixing the leak not paying attention to that at all.

[better-late24.livejournal.com]

I don't think you have to really worry about structural damage from this. More an irritation than anything else, I think. You can get water damage from it, but not of the floor/ceiling collapsing variety. I've had water drip through floors before.

But hey, I'm no expert!

[lonebear.livejournal.com]

The last one is actually a violation of NYC law i believe. I'd actually call 311 on that.

I don't think you need to worry overmuch unless the volume increases markedly with the steam being on.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Nah, that seems to be on the on status, it gets less when it cycles down.

[feyandstrange.livejournal.com]

From my experience with ceiling leaks (whimper), if it is a fairly steady drip not changing much in volume and it doesn't get worse, and the stuff dripping in is mostly water and not something like sewage, you should be okay for a few days - but leaks should always be reported to the super/management/someone ASAP, since the damage they do will only get worse. Hot water leaks also cost a lot in terms of lost heat, so management *should* sensibly repair those in a hurry.

If your plaster is not making a huge bubble, then just set a large bucket under the drip overnight. If you do get a plaster bubble, it might be prudent (although bloody horrible) to attempt to puncture it in a controlled fashion rather than letting it burst onto the floor and anything else in its way.

It's extremely unlikely that the ceiling is going to come crashing down or anything like that; the only structural integrity you need to worry about is that of the plaster itself, which may peel. And plaster-saturated water can be hard to get out of floors and towels and things, so try to keep drips in easily rinsed or disposable containers. (Radiator water is often hard and crunchy as heck, and may leave mineral rings in your cooking pots. LIme-a-way may cure those but I forget if it's good for Teflon and is probably not supposed to be used on food prep things unless diluted.)

If this continues for insanely long you may get bits of ceiling masonry board coming down with the drips as well, but that's a lot longer in the future.

For reference, the apartment(s) above mine were once flooded with several inches of water when the idiot landlord literally broke a large hot water pipe in a bathroom two or three floors up, and the poor super had to run down the hall, down all the stairs, and deep into the basement to the only water shutoff valve. Our apartment - well, raining indoors does pretty well describe it. But the structure itself was not damaged. (1930s construction at best.)

Floors/ceilings are meant to hold a lot of weight, especially around tubs and radiators, which are heavy even when not full of water. At worst your plaster will all fall off and the upstairs folks may have a saggy spot in their floor.

THe dripping in various areas sounds like a puddle has formed somewhere (leaking radiator?) and it is soaking through the easiest spots, which are plumbing and electrics. Keep an eye on any other nearby ceiling fixtures and the ceiling/wall joints. A small but continuously fed puddle from a radiator is pretty common; here's hoping it isn't a lake, which might mean the drips get worse. Since you said it varies with the radiator being on or off, a small puddle makes the most sense.

The real structural damage will come if they have to rip open your ceiling and fix a leaking pipe, which is why I'm hoping it's the radiator or a pipe upstairs that can be reached from their apartment. Fingers crossed to avoid that!

[rm.livejournal.com]

The water is varrying in intensity from fully stopped for several hours, to the drip rate mentioned here after the boiler has cycled back on for a while.

We have now noticed that there are water trails on the wall behind the pipe and are unusre if this is a new development or was going on. I felt them -- all but one is dry, so I do think it's the "small lake of radiator" coming down as it can.

The water is grisly -- light to very dark brown, but ther'es clearly no sewage involved. It's rust/dirt and possibly soot.

I'm going to call the management company again tomorrow at 9am, as I'd like to get this dealt with ASAP and suspect they may need some prodding.

[feyandstrange.livejournal.com]

Mmm, rusty radiator water. Ghastly stuff. I once had to help drain a hot-water radiator, and the sludge inside was appalling.

The good news about that is that the seriously hard and filthy water inside a radiator is actually less likely to grow mold and mildew in many cases; the stuff's not quite poisonous but at least a deterrent.

Absolutely nag them first thing in the morning. Your call on whether they will react more quickly to "I'm pretty sure it's the radiator" or "I don't know but it's gross and might be sewage and it might make us sick, you have to stop this".

Fingers crossed for a quick and easy fix.